Ryan Munnis [Cakewalk]

Seth Kellogg [Cakewalk]

paulo

Seth Kellogg [Cakewalk]

Jlien X
Strange. I PMed Ryan three times but haven't got any response. I hope he's not dead.

He's not dead. He's just very busy with Tech Support stuff at the moment. Someone is on vacation and someone else is out sick.

Who's looking after the cats ?

ALL THE CATS ARE BELONG TO ME

Good thing too. I'm very allergic!!!
 
Jlien X, sorry for the delay, was travelling for a bit. I sent you an email 

 
Thank you very much for your email, Ryan. I replied with information you needed.
I'm glad the tickets that have been unfortunately overlooked are now taken care of properly. I hope the bugs will be fixed in X3a.

I hope the bug fixes will be available to x2a users who don't upgrade to X3. After all, we shouldn't be forced to buy a new verion to get bug fixes for an existing product that is being sold.

stevec

leebut
I hope the bug fixes will be available to x2a users who don't upgrade to X3. After all, we shouldn't be forced to buy a new verion to get bug fixes for an existing product that is being sold.

However... the existing product won't continue to be sold once the next is available, that's always been how it's worked.  Back-porting fixes can often be as big a task as actually making the fix itself due to underlying code changes.   It's probably why it rarely happens, anywhere...AFAIK.
 

Most products that have a price tag in the hundreds of dollars have more than one patch per major product release.  I agree that it isn't so comment to issue a lot of patches after the next version ships, but most high priced products that have significant bugs do at least a couple of patch cycles each year.
 
It really isn't that hard if you design patch packaging into your development platform.  The release packaging should be essentially 100% scripted.  There is the issue of regression testing, but much of that can be automated these days too.  It is just a question of priorities.  It does take some resources away from development.  Many companies decide that maintaining customer loyalty is worth such an investment.

stevec
As far as back-porting being easier if the process is baked in (pun intended), not if the fix depends on other design changes that don't exist in the previous version. 

Yes.  I agree.  Fixes that depend on a significant improvement to the program's foundation or architecture do need to go with major releases (which might be free or purchased.)  That's a marketing decision.  For example, Microsoft is putting some of those foundational changes into Windows 8.1, but marketing realities said they had to make that available for free.  I understand those decisions going both ways.
 
But I would submit that the majority of bugs that irritate people are not dependent on foundations that aren't there.  They are just regular bugs that could be fixed in patch releases.  Really, it should be a relatively rare thing that something seem by the user base as a clear-cut bug is the result of a bad architecture.  When that happens, that indicates a poor job of systems analysis.  (I realize I date myself by using the term "system analysis", but that used to be a widely practiced discipline wherever software was developed.  Programmers rose to the level of analyst as they gained experience and the analyst was responsible to anticipate the dead ends in the architecture.  I doubt that most software shops have that kind of formal discipline anymore.)
 
I would stipulate that many of the enhancement ideas ("Gee I wish SONAR did a better job of XYZ ...") are the sorts of things you describe that could be dependent on foundations that are not present.  But vendors SHOULD charge for enhancements.  That's fair.  Charging for bug fixes -- not so much.

stevec
And that's exactly why I hope X3 will see more than one update!  

Personally I'd like to see a 4- or 6-month patch cycle.  But I think most people could be reasonably happy with a 2-year purchased "X" level cycle and two free patch releases for each ""X" level.  That would put the patches roughly 8 months apart, which ought to be something that Cakewalk could manage without too much grief.